Marketization, Performative Environments and the Impact of Organisational Climate on Teaching Practice In Business Schools

Abstract

Marketisation of higher education has emerged as a global trend in many countries and in the UK, students are now paying amongst the highest tuition fees globally. Marketisation is synonymous with performative management practices that require universities to report on an expanding range of metrics designed to demonstrate value to students and the general public. It is also changing the way educational provision is delivered and managed, including the way in which teaching practice is managed to meet the challenges of marketization, managerialism and student demand. This paper uses the concept of Organisational Climate (OC) to examine the challenges facing UK Business School academics in their teaching role in particular, focusing on the factors shaping the climate for teaching across different institutions. Using focus groups, the paper identifies the determinants of OC for teaching practice in order to explore how academics perceive their role and the effect of marketization and performative systems on the changing conceptions of teaching in higher education. The paper has wide ranging implications for business schools globally in understanding how marketisation affects teaching practice, where managerialism and metric outputs are already impacting other key agendas facing the delivery of academic subjects with a strong business orientation.